Merton on True Identity (and More)

The late Trappist monk Thomas Merton on the solitary life, identity, war, rain, Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," the sixth century Syrian hermit Philoxenos, "Lord of the Flies," and Coleman camp lanterns. A sampling:

Now if we take our vulnerable shell to be our true identity, if we think our mask is our true face, we will protect it with fabrications even at the cost of violating our own truth. This seems to be the collective endeavor of society: the more busily men dedicate themselves to it, the more certainly it becomes a collective illusion, until in the end we have the enormous, obsessive, uncontrollable dynamic of fabrications designed to protect mere fictitious identities-- "selves," that is to say, regarded as objects. Selves that can stand back and see themselves having fun (an illusion which reassures them that they are real).

Read the full essay,"Rain and the Rhinoceros," as an html file, or download it as a pdf.